Web Aesthetic

De Stijl

Three colors, two axes, one philosophy. Everything else is noise.

What This Is

Philosophy

De Stijl is reduction taken to its endpoint. You keep only what is universal: horizontal lines, vertical lines, and three primary colors. Everything else — curves, ornament, personal expression — is stripped away. What remains is not minimal. It is absolute.

The style does not decorate a page. It turns the page into a composition. Every section boundary is a black line. Every background is a decision between red, blue, yellow, white, or nothing. The grid is not a layout tool. The grid is the point.

Design Tokens

Characteristics

Primary Colors Only

Red, blue, yellow, black, and white. No secondary colors, no tints, no shades. Color is used in flat, solid blocks — never blended, never gradient.

Thick Black Grid Lines

4-6px solid black borders define every division. The line is structure, not decoration. It separates and connects simultaneously.

Asymmetric Rectangles

The composition is divided into rectangles of different sizes. Balance comes from proportion, not symmetry. No two blocks are the same.

Right Angles Only

Zero border-radius. No circles, no curves, no diagonals. Every edge meets at ninety degrees.

Neutral Typography

Sans-serif at regular and bold weights. Type does not express — it communicates. The geometry speaks; the text serves.

No Depth

No shadows, no gradients, no textures, no transparency. Every element is flat, opaque, and on the same plane. Depth is an illusion this style refuses.

Copy & Paste

Style Reference

PROMPT

Strict Mondrian-inspired grid composition. Only primary colors: red (#DE3831), blue (#1E3F8E), yellow (#F2CB05), plus black (#000) and white (#FFF). Thick black grid lines (4-6px solid #000) divide the layout into asymmetric rectangular blocks. Some blocks are filled with a primary color, others left white. Right angles only — no curves, no border-radius, no diagonals. Typography is a neutral sans-serif (Inter, 400/700) that stays out of the way. No shadows, no gradients, no textures. The layout itself is the artwork. Pure abstraction. Art-as-architecture.

When to Use

Use Cases

Good for

Art galleries and museum sites
Architecture and design studios
Brand identities that want to signal rigor
Editorial layouts where structure IS the story
Portfolio sites for geometric or abstract work

Not for

Warm or friendly consumer products
Content-heavy applications — the grid fights with content
Photography sites — images break the color constraint
Anything requiring rounded, soft, or organic shapes
E-commerce — too austere for conversion

Origins

History

In 1917, Theo van Doesburg founded the journal De Stijl in Leiden, the Netherlands. Around him gathered Piet Mondrian, Gerrit Rietveld, Bart van der Leck, and others who believed art should abandon representation entirely. They sought a visual language of pure relationships — vertical against horizontal, primary color against non-color.

Mondrian's grid paintings became the movement's most recognizable output, but De Stijl was never just painting. Rietveld designed furniture and architecture. Van Doesburg applied the principles to typography, interiors, and stained glass. The movement insisted that art, architecture, and design were the same discipline.

De Stijl dissolved as a formal group by 1931, but its ideas became the foundation of modernist design. The Bauhaus absorbed its principles. The International Style carried them into architecture. And today, any time a designer reaches for a strict grid, flat primary colors, and uncompromising geometry, they are working in De Stijl's shadow.